It's a Cultural Thing
by Dude13
Summary: Apparently, not only are certain sports much more popular in other countries, but they have quite a bit of a zealous following as well, as a few residents find out. [Oneshot]


Well, I might as well post this while the memory of the World Cup is still somewhat fresh in a few of our minds.

This is just something I wrote on my own about two weeks ago and I just remembered that it was still sitting on my computer while I was watching the Italy-France final match.

This was written just for fun, not to be pro or anti certain team. Remember, written a few weeks ago, where at the time I picked the teams used here at random.

Enjoy, hopefully!

Disclaimer: I don't own Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

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"CHANNEL SEVEN! CHANNEL SEVEN! PLEASE, PLEASE, _PLEASE_! CHANNEL SEVEN! 

The hysterically frantic high-pitched squeal rang to the high heavens; thus it was quite a nasty shock to the select few gathered in the Foster's TV room when the hideous racket abruptly assaulted their eardrums.

"AUGH!" Bloo yelped in shock, springing nearly a foot in the air up off his seat. "What the-?"

As the little blob frantically tried to tend to his shattered nerves, Frances "Frankie" Foster meanwhile was hastily struggling to reassure the atrociously startled eight-year-old little boy who instinctively latched on tightly to her in his fright.

"It's okay, it's okay! Whoa, hold on! Mac, quit it! Quit it! Ow! Leggo!" she yelped, frantically trying to undo his vise-like grip.

"What is it?" Wilt demanded worriedly, glancing about madly with his one good eye. "What's going on-"

The words died upon his lips within an instant, but it still took him a good thirty seconds to comprehend the presence of the small, pig-tailed little girl who had actually managed to scale his winding arm in record time and now tugged furiously at the object of her quest.

"Wilt, give it! Get it, Wilt! Wilt, give it, give it, give it, give it, give it, give it, give it!" Goo shrieked as she struggled madly to pry the remote control free from his hand. "Wilt, gimme the remote! Now! Now! Please, Wilt, now! Now! Puh-_LEEZE_!"

At this point the child was practically frothing at the mouth in her frenzied attempt to seize the remote, causing for her to resemble some rabid beast dressed in a rainbow shirt and overalls. Needless to say, the others quickly recovered from the earlier fright, as they were all set upon in almost exact unison by total bemusement due to the ludicrously comical spectacle before them.

"…I don't wanna freak you guys out or anything, but I think she's gone absolutely nuts." Bloo whispered to Frankie and Mac none too quietly.

"Knock it off, Bloo! She's not crazy! Goo's…um…she…s-she hasn't…uh…" Mac instinctively tried to defend his friend, but the little girl's current deranged status gave the boy little hard evidence to work with.

"…Goo's just….um….she's trying to….uh…..er….Frankie?" He finally whimpered imploringly to the stunned redhead, who just shot him an incredulous glare.

"What are _you_ looking at? I don't know whether I need to call her parents, the hospital, or an exorcist!" she yelled exasperatedly, completely appalled by the ridiculously cartoonish sight. "Wilt, _what's_ she doing?"

The good-natured imaginary friend just frowned confusedly at the utterly bemused trio.

"I dunno!" he cried as the half-crazed child attacked his hand with fresh vigor. "I guess she just want's to change the channel, but I-_OW_!"

Wilt roared in pain as in her frenzy, Goo resorted to literally clawing the remote free from his grip, lashing out madly with her nails like a deranged tiger. The second her prize was free, she wasted no time and immediately dived from her high perch, expertly catching the remote in her mid-air, soaring gracefully like some majestic bird…

_THUMP!_

…And abruptly coming to a dead halt upon contact with the floor in a landing that was hardly as spectacular as her diving grab. Crumpled in a pitiful mess, the child lay motionless where she had fallen, sprawled facedown and resembling a fallen soldier ruthlessly cut down in the field of combat.

"Goo?" Mac whispered worriedly in a hoarse squeak, leaping from his seat and quickly scuttling over to her side before anyone else could move a muscle. "Goo, are you-"

"DON'T TELL ME THAT I MISSED A GOAL!" She suddenly screamed as her eyelids snapped back open. As Mac wailed in terror and hastily dived away in his gut-wrenching shock, Goo hastily settled herself into a sitting position, took a deep breath, changed the channel-

"…and the score between England and Italy is 0-0, no goals scored yet, and…" The announcer droned on as a soccer game appeared on the TV screen. Immediately Goo let out a long, ludicrously blissful sigh as she lay down upon her back, a hint of bizarre contentment explicitly marking her expression.

"No goals yet…" she wheezed, clearly pleased she had made it. "There's still plenty of time….they can still win it…plenty of time…"

Goo continued to murmur deliriously to herself like a patient in a mental asylum, eyes wide-open and unblinkingly fixated on the televised match before her. She was now more eerily still and deathly silent then her friends could ever remember the usually bubbly and hyperactive little girl being the entire time they knew her, much to their total befuddlement. Whereas the Goo they knew possessed more boundless energy then a hundred hyperactive kindergartners, the little girl before them looked as if she pass off as an exhibit in a wax museum.

"Uh….Goo, are you-" Frankie murmured curiously.

"Shh!" Goo abruptly hushed her without even moving her gaze. "Can't hear!"

"But-" Mac tried just as unsuccessfully to grab her attention.

"C'mon, c'mon, get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, get the ball…" The little girl just chanted furiously to herself, enthusiastically cheering on whatever team possessed her loyalty. "Pass it, pass it! Yeah, you got it! Go! Go!"

"G-"

"Yes! Yes! Wait, wait, what's he-_NO_! Oh no, are you _kidding_ me, that sooo wasn't offside, it-"

"What _are_ you watching, anyway?" Bloo suddenly blurted out bewilderedly.

No sooner had he spoken these magic words, he immediately attracted the little girl's attention like a massive magnet attracts an iron nail. Goo hastily whirled about to face her comrades, gawking slack-jawed at them and utterly baffled by what she just heard.

"_What_?" she squeaked incredulously. "Y'mean you really, really, really, really, really don't _know_?"

"I-"

"_WORLD_ _CUP_!" Goo leapt to her feet and screamed jubilantly before any of the others could so much as begin to think of a logical response. "World Cup, World Cup, World Cup, World Cup, World Cup, World Cup, World Cup…"

As she chanted it gleefully over in and over in a singsong manner and pranced madly throughout the room, her friends all simply stared blankly at the impish figure in stupefied unison.

"Wait, you mean like, soccer?" Frankie finally managed to inquire gently, cocking an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, this is like the championship tournament, or something like that, isn't it?"

"Nuh-uh!" Goo squealed gleefully, pausing her dance to perform a quick cartwheel across the carpet. "Not _just_ a tournament, it's the best of the super best of the very best playin' each other in the greatest, most awesome thing _ever_!"

"Bigger than the World Series?" Bloo asked dumbly, to which only Goo blew him a massively sloppy raspberry.

"Nope, nope, nope! Not just "bigger", it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay much much more extra better than dumb ol' baseball!" she proclaimed triumphantly. "It's the bestest thing _ever_, and England's gonna take the cup this year, I know it!"

"England?" Mac sputtered confusedly. "You're rooting for England?"

"Yeah, what are you, some kind of communist? _OW_!" Bloo demanded fiercely, earning him a harsh pinch of reprimand from Frankie.

"Nope, nuh-uh!" Goo only corrected him joyfully. "My dad's from England see? So we always, always, always, always cheer for his home team when we can, especially when-"

"_La victoire appartiendra en France_!"

As soon as the heavily accented cry echoed throughout the room, Goo gasped in horror and went dead silent, as if someone had just uttered the vilest blasphemy

"…_What_?" she whispered confusedly, slowing craning her head towards the doorway. The others did likewise, and planted their gazes upon a very resolute-looking imaginary friend standing determinedly in the doorway, a creature resembling more or less the outcome of several European countries compacted inside a bizarre, squirrel-like animal.

"You heard me!" Eurotrish growled venomously as she strode in, her heavy wooden clogs creating a tremendous racket as she stomped towards the child. "What was that rubbish I heard? England? Taking the cup? You dream, France will take win it all this year! It's not even a question who'll take it!"

Her declaration was short but extremely concise, but not exactly as clear as Eurotrish would've liked considering her thick accent, making her practically incomprehensible and a ridiculous spectacle to boot. While she stared down the badly shocked Goo fiercely, Frankie just groaned wearily and snapped a fierce reproach at the queer imaginary friend.

"Oh knock it off, Eurotish!" she hissed threateningly. "Leave Goo alone and let her watch the game. Besides, what is this, the _fifth_ different team I've heard you rooting for this week?"

"You lie!" Eurotrish squealed in denial. "I've always-"

"Oh, yeah right!" Frankie scoffed. "Don't fib, missy! First it was Germany, then it was Portugal, later it was Sweden, you talked about nothing but Italy for a little bit, and now-"

"Wrong, wrong, wrong, _WRONG_!" Goo suddenly screeched furiously as she hastily scrambled to her feet, bearing a look of terrible ferocity of the likes that no one had ever seen before in the usually effervescent child. As the little girl cracked her knuckles, it became blatantly obvious that the she had actually been forced into a terrific rage, an extraordinarily rare sight to behold. Gone was her beaming toothy grin, and now in its place lay a terrific scowl so foul one wouldn't even be able to find it on a stone gargoyle.

"You're _wrong_!" Goo reiterated angrily. "It's sooooooo gonna be England this year, I just know it! You and your stinky dumb team don't have a chance in a million billion years of making it!"

"Oh please!" Eurotrish replied snidely. "_Your_ silly little excuse for a team can't even tell which goal is which, they'll be gone before you can even blink!"

"Nuh-uh! England!" Goo shouted back resolutely. "It's gonna be England!"

"France!" Eurotrish only growled with a harsh sneer.

"England!" Goo promptly repeated herself, sticking out her tongue impudently.

"France!" Her opponent shot back, countering with an obscene gesture of obviously foreign origins.

"_England_!" The eight-year-old girl practically screamed, rapidly losing her patience.

"Fra-"

"EnglandEnglandEnglandEnglandEnglandEnglandEngland!" Goo howled, furiously stomping the floor as she defended her team steadfastly, to which Eurotrish replied with a string of incomprehensible curses in a diverse range of languages.

As the two squared off with one another, the few others present could only watch the bizarre spectacle warily as it escalated at a dazzlingly unfathomable rate.

"_What_ are they doing?" Mac squeaked nervously as he tugged worriedly upon Frankie's sweater. Frankie just cocked an eyebrow at the ridiculous sight and shook her head, utterly dumbfounded.

"I…don't….know…."

"Maybe soccer just isn't an American thing…" Wilt suggested weakly. "I mean, we-"

"Well, whatever it is, these soccer fans sure know how to duke it out with each other!" Bloo just hooted gleefully like a rowdy fan at a pro-wrestling match. "Whoohoo! Just look at 'em go!"

Frankie rolled her eyes and prepared to give the little azure blob a light reproving rap on the head.

"Knock it off, Bloo, they're just arguing over-_OH MY GOD!_"

The horrified redhead couldn't help but screech at the top of her lungs in her dumb shock the instant she laid her eyes back upon the brawling duo. Much to her dismay, and the others, the squabble had actually escalated from mere bickering to a full all-out hand-to-hand combat in just the few moments the rest had used to temporarily talk amongst themselves. Now, the two were hopelessly beyond the point were a few measly apologies could end their squabble as child and imaginary friend grappled furiously with one another.

"England, it's gonna be England!" Goo roared, struggling to put the wildly thrashing imaginary friend into a headlock. "Say it! Say it's gonna be England!"

"Fille stupide, vous regretterez ceci!" Eurortish howled incomprehensibly.

The pair became locked in fierce combat, rolling about upon the floor in a chaotic muddle as each one pulled hair, scratched, bit, kicked, punched, and anything else possibly in their frenzies. It only took a second or so for the intensity of the fierce struggle to reach the point of being horribly akin to two rabid rottweilers going at each other's throats. Determined to keep the ravenous two from obliterating the other in the horrific process, Frankie immediately leapt from her seat and dashed over to the fray, eager to restore peace.

"Okay, that's it!" she snarled, struggling to try and force the two fighters apart. "Stoppit! Stoppit! That's _enough_ out of both of you, I won't have this going on in-_YEOWCH_!"

Roaring in unimaginable agony, Frankie suddenly tore her hand away and promptly withdrew from her futile attempt to break up the terrific battle. Backing off a few paces, the young woman broke out into a mad dance of pain as she cursed a blue streak under her breath.

"Frankie, are you okay?" Mac instinctively yelped frantically in mortified shock. The caretaker however paid his inquiry little heed, gritting her teeth fiercely as she rubbed her wound and glared daggers at one of the berserk combatants in particular.

"Get her, Goo!" she snarled venomously as she sat herself back upon the couch with the rest of the bemused spectators. "Knee the little rat in the gut! Yank her fancy pigtails clean off her scalp! Gouge out her eyes!" she howled. "Don't stop clawing until you hit bone-"

"Frankie, _what_ are you doing?" Wilt cried, dumbstruck by her sudden onset of bloodthirsty rage. The caretaker only growled ruefully as she continued to tenderly nurse her injury.

"The nasty gerbil in a beret _bit_ me!" She hissed in defense, holding out her hand to show off a nasty set of teeth marks marring her skin. "She totally has it coming to her!"

"No, totally not okay, Frankie! We're not going to-"

"Give her a body slam, Goo!" the young woman snarled. "Show her who's boss around here!"

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Bloo just whooped ecstatically along with her, elated by the entire gruesome spectacle. "Woohoooooo!"

"Guys, knock it off! Well we can't just let them fight like this, can we?" Mac rationally implored to the others.

"Sure we can!" Bloo cheerily answered back, possessing the audacity to flash a thumbs-up. "Seriously, are you kidding me? This is _awesome_!"

"That little monster deserves whatever she gets." Frankie grumbled sorely, wincing as she tried to tend to her injury.

"No, she doesn't!" Mac shot back steadfastly. "We can't let this go on, they'll kill each other! Just look at them go at it, if we don't-"

_WHAM!_

And just as abruptly as it began, the spectacular brawl ended.

Now, how in the world an eight-year-old little girl managed to lug an antique armchair from across the room and topple it atop her opponent in a matter of moments was entirely anyone's guess. However, there was simply no other possible way to achieve the results that lay before the fight's spectators; the familiar pair of wooden clogs sticking out from beneath the upturned chair clearly showed that a now unconscious Eurotrish lay securely flattened beneath it.

Goo however was in no mood to stick around and boast over her fantastic victory, for as soon as her foe was thoroughly vanquished the child immediately plastered herself happily back in front of the TV. As the familiar happy-go-lucky grin re-attached itself to her face while she relished in the joy of watching an excellent match of soccer, the others just stared at the little girl blankly, all of them gawking in total slack-jawed astonishment.

Realizing the deafening silence that had just settled over the room, Goo craned her neck and shot her friends an extremely confused glare, as if there was nothing at all at the moment to be completely dumbstruck over.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she piped up as innocently as possible, her expression showing absolutely no hints or traces of seething anger or overzealous loyalty to her beloved team. "You don't like watching soccer?"

"It's not that! Goo, you-" Wilt tried to gasp in awe, pointing at the crushed Eurotrish with an atrociously quivering hand.

"Mac, you wanna watch up here with me? Huh?" Goo just squeaked, patting the spot next to her encouragingly while she flashed a warm, inviting grin. "Pleeeeeease?"

Quickly noting that she was hardly the bloodthirsty child of only a minute or two before, Mac decided to give it a shot as he plastered a colossal affirming smile upon his face.

"Sure!" he cried joyously, casually hopping off the sofa and scuttling over to plop himself down next to his companion. Instantly, Goo found that she had no need to request any further for more company, as Bloo instinctively clambered from his favorite couch cushion to seat himself among his friends as hastily as he could.

The trio complete, they grouped together happily and glued their eyes upon the heated game televised before them, completely oblivious to the devastated wreck of an imaginary friend lying squashed only a foot or so away from them. Wilt, on the other hand, simply couldn't peel his gaze away from the horrific aftermath of the ridiculously one-sided battle, and only managed a passing glance to Frankie after a tremendous amount of effort.

"_Well_?" he demanded impatiently. "Shouldn't we _do_ something?"

For what seemed like an agonizingly long period of time, Frankie just rubbed her wound and stared back dumbly in the manner of a deer caught in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler. Finally however, the young woman gave a simple shrug, removed herself from her spot on the sofa, and promptly plodded over to join the others.

"_Frankie_!" Wilt yelped incredulously. "Don't tell me that you're not gonna….after they just….Goo _smashed_ Eurotrish with an entire….and now she….she….."

The lanky imaginary friend continued to sputter uncontrollably in his gargantuan disbelief, jabbing furiously at the apathetic redhead, the eight-year-old girl, and Eurotrish's unconscious form repeatedly. However, Frankie only grinned deviously as she settled herself comfortably upon the floor amongst the little ones, who were so entranced with the game at this point that they didn't even blink in acknowledgement of her presence. .

"Hey, say what you want." She laughed as she affectionately tousled the hair of a very distracted Goo. "But I _told_ you the overgrown hamster deserved whatever was coming to her, didn't I?"

"I don't believe this…" Wilt groaned in utter exasperation, burying his face in his hand.

"Hey, look on the bright side!" Frankie added with a mischievous grin. "At least we don't have to put up with any of _her_ singing for a little bit…"

**The End**

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Please review, I appreciate any feedback! 


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